CRIME IN MEXICO VS. THE US

[newinajijic]

A friend sent me this by email and I agree with it.

I'm often asked if we feel safe here along Lake Chapala so I thought I would share this with you.

From a Fox News article in today's online news, this excerpt from an article about the drug related deaths primarily in the border states helps put things in perspective. While no place - either in the USA or Mexico or elsewhere - is immune to violent crime, we still maintain the most of Mexico, and in particular south central Mexico which is home to several hundred thousand retired Americans, is as safe as the Connecticut suburbs.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — More Americans in Mexico are falling victim to a wave of drug violence sweeping the country, a change driven home by the recent killing of a U.S. Consulate employee and her husband who were gunned down after leaving a children's birthday party.

The number of U.S. citizens killed in Mexico has more than doubled to 79 in 2009 from 35 in 2007, according to the U.S. State Department's annual count. No figures were available for the first two months of 2010.

While only some of the killings are specifically listed as "executions" or "drug-related," the increase in homicides appears to be related to drug battles. In Ciudad Juarez, the northern border city hardest hit by drug violence and where the consulate employee was killed, homicides of Americans rose to 23 in 2009 from two in 2007.

The annual murder rate for the estimated 500,000 American citizens in Mexico at any one time has risen — but still remains lower than in some U.S. cities: about 15 per 100,000. Baltimore's 2009 homicide rate was 37 per 100,000 residents.

[Guest shelley]

News - El Universal

Sunday March 21, 2010

At least 8 killed in shootout in Mazatlan

In short the violence in Sinaloa have left a toll of 16 deaths in the last hours, including two federal police

A clash between rival groups of organized crime killed nine people on the Maxipista Culiacan-Mazatlan, at the height of the municipality of ?. Some victims were dressed in police uniforms apocryphal.

The Attorney General's office reported that state yesterday, near the community of Celestino Gasca, the two groups exchanged fire and hurled grenades.

The place is located a Tacoma pickup truck with the bodies of five men semiquemados, some dress blue uniforms similar to those carried by federal police.

Three miles later, aboard a Hummer they found the bodies of two men and about what happened to the eighth victim with a fragmentation grenade without turning on the right hand. The ninth death occurred in a hospital, where there are still three serious injuries.

Young "lifted" and executed

A young colony of Culiacan Esthela Ortiz, who was raised on Wednesday, was found dead in a split gap Capistrano.

Monitoring of Tamaulipas government official reported that an armed clash between civilians and military in Ciudad Victoria left four people dead, including a soldier.

Also, on Saturday to locate the bodies of the commander and group leader of the Ministerial Police stationed in the town of Mante.

Three people were executed in Guerrero. The first victim is Alberto Cruz Morales, and was riddled with bullets during a wake in the community Macahuite, Azoyu municipality on the Costa Chica of Guerrero, the other two were deprived of life by firing a firearm in the population of Aztatepec in Quechultenango, during a family party.

In Sonora, the police located the bodies of four people. In the municipality of Altar, there were two bodies at kilometer 20, bound for the gap in El Sasabe. In Maycoba a carcass on the road Hermosillo-Chihuahua, Nogales and the body of a man.

In Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, a woman was murdered in the streets Carlos Amaya and Manuel Goytia, cologne Constitution. Overall, violence in this border killed seven people including a police agent named Abraham Israel Aguirre, who was executed in the Peripheral Youth and Morelos and Michoacan were two people dead.

In Motozintla municipality, Chiapas, police secured a cargo of 270 sausages Tovex explosive brand, after a chase on a highway in the mountains. Authorities arrested the traffickers identified as Orlando Roblero and Emigdio Morales Pérez. (Yovana Gaxiola, Javier Cabrera, Rafael Rivera, Marcelo Beyliss, Adriana Covarrubias, Juan Cervantes, Oscar Gutierrez, correspondents

3/20

MONTERREY, NL .- Suspected assassins groups ....for the second straight day, highway access and "seized" at least 60 vehicles of individuals with whom blocked for hours at least 30 points of the pathways that communicate primarily with populations Tamaulipas Reynosa and Miguel German.

3/21

The confrontation between the Mexican army and an armed group near the campus of the Instituto Tecnologico de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey in Nuevo Leon, on Friday March 19, left two (grad) students dead

3/21

Cuernavaca, Mor .- Suspected drug hitmen attacked and burned the office of the federal legislature of the PRI, Francisco Moreno Merino, a member of the National Defense Commission in the Chamber of Deputies.

[newinajijic]

Typical Mexican violence due to the drug cartels in the drug states, like Juarez, Coahuila and Sinaloa. It doesn't affect us here at Lakeside.

[tobyjug]

Typical Mexican violence due to the drug cartels in the drug states, like Juarez, Coahuila and Sinaloa. It doesn't affect us here at Lakeside.

Similar to living in the suburbs of Chicago or Detroit, if you are not living "down town" its like night and day

[G598738]

I agree. There's some problem that comes from Guad and some local crime. All in all I am more comfortable in Ajijic than I am here in Florida.

[Kiko]

So the Baltimore murder rate is 37/100,000 and murder rate of Americans in Mexico is 15/100,000. If your house isn't selling here at Lakeside maybe you ought to give thought to advertising in Baltimore.